Monthly Archives: February 2013

The introduction of the public endorsement of a connection, friend or colleague within the gates of LinkedIn is a marvelous feature for LinkedIn, it’s advertisers and it’s customers for reasons I will explain. It promotes, elevates, organizations, categorizes, weighs, and measures. Anything measured can be managed, and anything managed can be used to benefit your business, your brand and your personal and professional opportunities to grow. LinkedIN gains the competitive advantage to further track relational behavior and interests, and advertisers receive a better targeted audience.

Kudos.

The public endorsement feature frees us from the demand of our time to pick up the phone, write a recommendation or wait for permission. It gives us the power to lift up your friend or colleague, to tell them that you have their back, that you believe in them, and that their expertise is worth touting. Call it a speed referral, an act of kindness, and even a gift.

Employers looking to hire you will see that your endorsements, we hope, commiserate with your experience; and that with the measured response of how many connections have endorsed your skill shows to those looking you over that you may be the man, or woman, for the job.

Bravo. Brilliant.

When you get the job, thank all of your friends. Thank them all for picking up the brush (ergo mouse click) to help paint a picture of who you are. After all, they invested so much time and effort to say, “you are who you say you are” and “you do what you say you do.”

Friend, thank you for your mouse click, for it means so very much to me.

Most importantly, thank you LinkedIn for giving me the most powerful tool to see my connections in a whole new light.

You have given us the ultimate tool. In a single mouse-click I can communicate to another my intention, my inauthenticity, and my ability to betray myself. I can show the world how I participate in the perception of one’s own image, without knowing it for sure. I can pad a connections experience like other’s pad their resume. I can show a new connection that I need their help, but am too cowardly to ask, that I want to be your friend…but for reasons that I won’t communicate. That I want something from you, other than your friendship.

Now, this isn’t entirely bad. Professional networks live off the value exchanged between others, so there is an axiom of I want to help / I am seeking help inherit in it’s structure. And brands build themselves by reaching for an ideal, for what they hope to become as business, company, or service provider. Marketing has it’s place. But beware.

The danger of a single mouse click can damage the very thing you hope to build…

…trust.

Employer’s like to fire the lier and your business partners will stop calling, and those contracts will not be renewed.

Bottom line: your public endorsement can become your own private betrayal.